Plans to relax employment rules for health workers’ families

Monday 08 October 2018

New rules making it easier for foreign health workers’ families to get work in Jersey are being drawn as the sector-wide staff shortage hits crisis point.

Assistant Chief Minister Constable Chris Taylor recently signed an order for employment laws to be modified to allow children aged up to 25 of ‘essential’ health employees or their co-habiting partners to access more categories of employment.

Coming at a time when agency nurses are now covering nearly 600 shifts per month, it is hoped that the plans will address “the difficulty that the Health and Social Services Department is experiencing in recruiting key workers such as social workers, nurses and midwives.” 

Under the proposed exemption to the Control of Housing and Work law, those children would be able to access jobs without businesses needing a permission to employ them.

Pictured: Constable Chris Taylor, Assistant Chief Minister, who signed off on the new rules in September.

Currently, children of health workers only receive that benefit if they move to Jersey while still below compulsory school age. Children over the age of 16 are given ‘registered’ residential and employment status.

“The Department of Health and Social Services has identified that one of the issues affecting the recruitment and retention of staff from outside of Jersey – in areas such as Children’s Services – is the ability of their children to access employment in the island,” a report explaining the decision read. 

It continued: “The Health and Social Services Department has identified that the present exemption – whereby only children of compulsory school age are considered exempt and, therefore, free to take up employment without restriction –  is discouraging some people from applying for and taking up roles in the Department where they have children above the compulsory school age.

“In order to resolve this issue, it is proposed that the present exemption will be extended so that older children will be given the same exempt status for employment purposes only.”

The health and social worker shortage epidemic has stretched over many years, but now appears to be hitting crisis point.

Last year the Health Minister revealed that vacancy rates for nurses were at 11.5% - a figure a fellow politician branded as “problematic”, given that it was more than double the industry standard.

A recent Freedom of Information request showed that the Health and Social Services Department is using 12 agencies to source UK nurses to cover an average of 582 shifts per month.

Meanwhile, the Children’s Commissioner has highlighted the problems for children caused by the high turnover and low retention rates of social workers.

In a bid to recruit more health workers externally to plug the gap, the department last year launched ‘Care Rediscovered’ – an online campaign aiming to attract workers from the UK and further afield, which featured a “generous” £8,000 relocation package. 

It was originally billed as a six-month campaign, but the website remains live at present, with more than a dozen vacancies advertised spanning all areas of medical practice and mental health.